reinvent oneself

アメリカの夏休みはアルバイトで学費を自らかせぐ学生にとって存在するといっても過言ではありません。ところがそのアルバイトですら求人率が低下し、dry spell（長期の「ひでり」状況）が続いています。以下はその状況を伝える記事ですが、その中のreinventは、re＋inventで、「〜を再発明する」と、一見簡単そうなフレーズですが、意外と使いこなせない表現だと思います。この文脈では「〜を根本から考え直す、見直す」といった意味でしょう。（UG）
Summer jobs hit record dry spell
By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY
The worst summer on record for young people who wanted a job staggered to an end this Labor Day weekend.
Only 47.6% of people ages 16 to 24 had jobs in August, the lowest level since the government began keeping track in 1948, according to the Labor Department. By comparison, 62.8% of that age group was employed in August 2000.
The ongoing recession hit young people especially hard this summer, sending many back to school with fewer dollars to spend. The unemployment rate averaged a record 18.3% during June, July and August for those younger than 25. That's more than twice the jobless rate for people 25 and older. Overall, the jobless rate edged up to 9.6% in August. It was 9.5% in July.
Traditional summer jobs were in short supply:
•Restaurants were hit hard by cutbacks in consumer spending — and that hurt an industry in which 40% of workers are under 25.
•States and cities, struggling with budget problems, hired fewer high school and college kids to work at parks, pools and other places. New York City slashed its summer youth employment program from 52,000 to 35,500 because of cutbacks in funding by the state.
Hudson Riehle, senior vice president of research at the National Restaurant Association, says fewer people are quitting jobs during the recession, shrinking job openings for young workers. When jobs do become available, experienced, older workers are often available for them. "Restaurant operators report a much wider variety of applicants to choose from," Riehle says. One bright sign: Restaurants did add more than 12,000 jobs in August, as summer waned. Young people are flooding back to community colleges and technical schools to reinvent themselves for jobs in health care and other fields.
"We've seen an explosion in students coming back, because the job market has turned south," says Colleen Hartfield, a vice president at Hinds Community College, which has 13,000 students in six central Mississippi locations.
"People are trying to prepare themselves for a very tight job market," she says.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/employment/2010-09-07-1Asummerjobs07_ST_N.htm